Georges Clemenceau called the war a series of disasters leading to victory. The French politician was mistaken. War always leads to defeat. And most of all, children suffer from the catastrophes that accompany it. And they are the most objective and impartial witnesses. Zherebtsova Polina is the author of diaries translated into many languages ​​of the world. She is compared with Anna Frank and Tanya Savicheva. Polina Zherebtsova, whose biography began in Chechnya, told the whole world about what was happening in her homeland in the nineties. The creativity and life path of this writer is the topic of the article.
A family
Zherebtsova Polina Viktorovna was born in 1985. Her hometown is Grozny. The family in which Polina Zherebtsova was born was multinational. In the library, which consisted of several dozen volumes, the Bible, the Qur'an, and the Torah had equal rights. The works of ancient philosophers and the works of Tolstoy Zherebtsov, Polina began to study already in adolescence.
The surname of the writer came from relatives on the maternal side. The Zherebtsovs have long been Cossacks, freedom-loving nobles who fled from the monarch's opal into the free Don expanses. Polina’s father was a lawyer, but died when she was very young. Mother in peacetime worked as a senior merchandiser at a large enterprise. Grandfather died in the first Chechen campaign. Zherebtsova Polina spoke extremely warmly in her diary about this man. He worked for more than twenty-five years on local television. He was an operator. He died tragically during the capture of a hospital in Pervomaisk.
Zherebtsova Polina Viktorovna kept diaries in which she expressed her innermost thoughts in Russian. However, among the ancestors of this author were Chechens, Ukrainians, Poles, Spaniards, and French. In the family of the author, for whom Russian was the mother tongue, it was customary to be proud of the pedigree, in which representatives of different nations intertwined in an intricate way. It may seem strange to those who are familiar with Zherebtsova’s work that in later works she increasingly emphasizes her innocence in Russian culture.
Before the war
The neighbors of the Zherebtsov family were people of different nationalities: Russians, Ingush, Avars, Ukrainians, Armenians. There were few Chechens. Before the war, relations between the inhabitants of the city, according to the writer's recollections, were friendly. The quarrel on national grounds Polina does not remember Zherebtsova. In addition, families were usually mixed.
Everything changed in 1994. With the outbreak of war, the inhabitants of Grozny began to divide each other into friends and foes, into Chechens and non-Chechens. And it was in 1994, Polina Viktorovna Zherebtsova, whose biography includes tragic events that not every adult man can bear, began to keep a diary. She was only nine years old. This diary is not easy to read. But it needs to be done. What did Polina Zherebtsova write about in her diary?
Biography (unknown)
Everyone who has read Chechen diaries knows about the life of the author of Ant in a Glass Jar and other works. However, Polina herself somewhat edited the original before the first publication. The writer excluded some facts and removed her own emotions, so as not to impose her point of view on the reader. Polina Viktorovna Zherebtsova, previously unknown facts from her life, the photo of which is located below, told reporters many years after the end of the war.
In 1996, a shell hit the porch in which the future writer lived. The neighbors who had spent the time peacefully a minute before this event died. Polina recalled many years later that her clothes were soaked in blood, and that she understood at that very moment that she would never be her own in this country.
Friends and strangers
The writer Zherebtsova Polina Viktorovna is known today all over the world. In Russia, her works were published only in 2012. In the diaries, Zherebtsova described childhood and youthful experiences, quarrels with her mother - in a word, everything that usually filled the inner world of an ordinary girl of nine to thirteen years old. However, all this was set out against the background of suffering, hunger, devastation, regular shelling.
As a teenager, Pauline wandered around the ruins, slept on an icy floor, heard shells buzzing, and was in constant search of food. A similar lifestyle led to the fact that the girl at the age of twelve began to lose her teeth, and health problems appeared. At school, she was often beaten only because she had a Russian surname. But, despite this, Polina Zherebtsova did not divide people into friends and foes. In an interview, she admitted that she is on the side of those who do not know how to shoot.
Consequences of war
Today it is not difficult to read the diaries, which began to be written by Polina Zherebtsova more than twenty years ago. Interesting facts from the memoirs of this author can serve as a lesson for those who consider war a kind of struggle between good and evil. Zherebtsova is convinced that war kills all that is good in a person. And only those who kindle her are guilty of this. And the worst thing is that the war does not end with the signing of a peace agreement. She will forever remain in the lives of those who have suffered from her.
Polina and her mother were not able to leave Grozny. They were forced to survive in unbearable conditions, in an atmosphere of poverty, constant shelling and hatred from their own countrymen. But, nevertheless, after graduation, Zherebtsova continued her studies at the local pedagogical institute. Then she worked as a journalist.
In people who were once in the war zone, the psyche is forever disturbed. Such citizens in developed countries receive compensation. However, the population affected by the bombing in Grozny is forced to rely only on their own forces. In 2007, Polina Zherebtsova wrote a letter to Alexander Solzhenitsyn with a request to help with the publication. The writer did not have time to read the letter of the young author. However, the staff of the Solzhenitsyn Foundation provided Zherebtsova with assistance. They helped with the move to Moscow. In those years, not a single Russian publishing house decided to print Chechen Diaries. Polina Zherebtsova filed a lawsuit against the Ministry of Defense. Due to sixteen injuries, hunger and constant stress, her health was undermined. However, Zherebtsova’s compensation was not paid.
Dangerous prose
After Pauline managed to publish her first book, she began to receive threats. No wonder the publishers of Grozny did not want to publish prose. Polina and her husband began to receive threats by phone and email. According to the writer, they were attacked more than once. But telling the truth to people, according to Zherebtsova, is the writer's duty. To survive, she had to leave Russia. Polina Zherebtsova asked for political asylum in Finland. Today she lives in this country, is safe and continues to work.
In Finland
In 2012, Polina Zherebtsova and her husband decided to leave their homeland. They bought a tour package and went to the capital of Finland. Russian border guards missed refugee tourists. Citizens of Russia have aroused suspicion among Finnish border guards. There were almost no personal items in the spouse's bag. But there were many manuscripts. One of them was a detailed biography of the author of "Chechen Diaries" in English. Despite minor difficulties, Polina Zherebtsova and her husband were allowed to go.
The next day they went to the police, where they asked for political asylum. They were provided with it. And along with this - medical care, the opportunity to attend language courses and a very decent benefit. Polina Zherebtsova, having the experience of a Chechen refugee behind her, said in an interview: “Little Finland can. Russia is not. ” People from Chechnya are forced to wander around relatives. They are entitled to a benefit of one hundred rubles per month, which hardly any refugee receives.
Creation
The works of Polina Zherebtsova are highly appreciated by professionals. Combining documentary and art genre, in her work she achieved high mastery. Critics compare this author with Varlam Shalamov, acknowledging that Zherebtsova’s diaries are not only documentary, but also a psychological document. The main achievement of Zherebtsova as an author is an extremely realistic depiction of how people, being in danger and suffering from constant need, gradually turn into nonhumans.
Awards
Polina Zherebtsova was twice awarded the Janusz Korczak Prize. In 2012, she received the Andrei Sakharov Prize with the wording “For Journalism as an Act.” In Finland, the story "Ant in a Glass Jar" was published. For this work Zherebtsova was nominated for a literary prize "Yasnaya Polyana".
Stockholm Syndrome
This term means the hostage appears sympathy for his invader. It occurs due to severe stress. Polina Zherebtsova is an author whose early works very often mention cases of violence by the local population of Chechnya against people with Russian roots. However, at the same time, she speaks extremely positively about the people, among whose representatives the theft of the bride in the 21st century is quite normal. But today, while in Finland, she continues to publish articles criticizing the Russian government. At the same time, he regularly recalls the peaceful neighborhood of Russians and Chechens before the war.
Whether Russophobia was present in Chechnya before 1994 is a difficult question. Discussing it is the lot of political observers and historians. However, there is an opinion that the authorities are guilty only of failing to provide security to the indigenous population of Chechnya. As a result, civilians were in unbearable conditions. When the diaries of Zherebtsova fell into the hands of one of the human rights activists, the young writer realized their true price. In order to get out of hell, in which she spent her childhood and adolescence, she had to significantly thicken her colors.